It was such a moderate, anti-radical rally that it invited a well-known mohammedan who supported the fatwah on Salman Rushdie and the murder of anyone who would dare disrespect Mohammed (the pedophile who created Islam out of whole cloth and married a six-year-old girl but chose not to have relations with her until she was nine years old).

From Patterico’s Pontifications:

my jaw dropped wide open when Stewart introduced a man named “Yusuf.” That would be Yusuf Islam, the man formerly known as Cat Stevens, who then played a rendition of his song “Peace Train.”

That would be the same Yusuf Islam/Cat Stevens who endorsed the Fatwah against Salman Rushdie. For instance, the New York Times reported (registration required) as follows in 1989:

The musician known as Cat Stevens said in a British television program to be broadcast next week that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ”I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing.”

The singer, who adopted the name Yusuf Islam when he converted to Islam, made the remark during a panel discussion of British reactions to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s call for Mr. Rushdie to be killed for allegedly blaspheming Islam in his best-selling novel ”The Satanic Verses.” He also said that if Mr. Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ”I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like.”

”I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is,” said Mr. Islam, who watched a preview of the program today and said in an interview that he stood by his comments.

That would be the same Yusuf Islam that Charles Johnson (in his sane period) quoted as saying: “The Qur’an makes it clear, if someone defames the Prophet, then he must die.” (As of this writing, Johnson has made no mention of Stevens/Islam’s presence at the rally. Color me surprised.) This is the same Yusuf Islam who threatened Farrukh Dhondy:

In the first week of the fatwa against Rushdie and his book, I [Dhondy] appeared on a television panel. Among the Muslim panelists, all of whom favored condemning the book, were two zealots: the same Kalim Siddiqui; and Yusuf Islam, the Muslim convert pop singer of Greek Cypriot origin formerly known as Cat Stevens. The moderator asked if, in my role as a commissioning editor of Channel 4 UK, I would contemplate turning The Satanic Verses into a film. I said that I would judge the cinematic merits of the script, and that no other consideration would rule it out. Kalim Siddiqui and Yusuf Islam snarled, warning that the sentence of death on Rushdie would extend to all those who forwarded his book in any way.

And this ___hole is in the rally to restore sanity?!

Salman Rushdie wrote to the UK Telegraph about this man the Restoring Vanity rally had on stage.

Cat Stevens wanted me dead

However much Cat Stevens/Yusuf Islam may wish to rewrite his past, he was neither misunderstood nor misquoted over his views on the Khomeini fatwa against The Satanic Verses (Seven, April 29). In an article in The New York Times on May 22, 1989, Craig R Whitney reported Stevens/Islam saying on a British television programme “that rather than go to a demonstration to burn an effigy of the author Salman Rushdie, ‘I would have hoped that it’d be the real thing’.”

He added that “if Mr Rushdie turned up at his doorstep looking for help, ‘I might ring somebody who might do more damage to him than he would like. I’d try to phone the Ayatollah Khomeini and tell him exactly where this man is’.”

In a subsequent interview with The New York Times, Mr Whitney added, Stevens/Islam, who had seen a preview of the programme, said that he “stood by his comments”.

Let’s have no more rubbish about how “green” and innocent this man was.

Jon Stewart insists that his “Rally to Restore Sanity” planned for the National Mall on Saturday is not political. But just about everything surrounding the event is.

Interviews with some of the tens of thousands of people expected to attend suggest that they want a message, not a simple comedy show. Liberal groups like Media Matters and Naral Pro-Choice America will be out in force to attract new members and even Organizing for America, President Obama’s political organization, wants to draw attendees to phone banks set up near the Mall.

Tracie Lewis Kinard, 36, from Mobile, Ala., said that when she heard about the rally, “I felt like my way of thinking was finally being represented.”

She is spending about $750 on a flight and two nights at a hotel. It is worth it, she said. “For one moment, the moderates will be the news.”

Look at all that leftist recruitment work! And that “moderate” woman? Eh, not so much. As Mr Treacher found so easily, she’s no moderate.

If you don’t have a problem with illegal immigration, you’re no moderate. You’re a flaming leftist. And if the New York Times thinks she’s a moderate, that only serves to prove how far to the left of center the NYT actually is. (Not that any thinking person would believe otherwise.) But that’s just one person, right?

Is that a communist recruiting at the Restoring Vanity rally? Why, yes. Yes, that is.

If NAMBLA is centrist, this nation has more problems than I thought. American Power has many more pictures of the supposedly centrist, lovey-dovey crowd. And, no, I don’t think I need to be joining their leftist forces anytime within the next 100 centuries.

Yusef Islam has frequently denied that he made statements favoring the assassination of Salmon Rushdie, claiming that what he said was hypothetical or joking or whatever, and simply referred to the Q’ranic specification that the punishment for blasphemy is death. But the man is an Englishman, born in London, and reared in the liberal West: for him to state that the punishment for blasphemy is death is an indication that the Western civilization in which he grew up has been at least partially stripped away by his conversion to Islam.

Pardon me, but when you say “via KeyPro”, what you mean to say is “a totally unsourced document by an anonomous poster called “keypro” on FreeRepublic, well noted as being a source of inaccurate right-wing propaganda”.

There is no source for this, there is no context, there is no proof.

This picture is, on all evidence, a lie. Naturally enough, PB embraces it immediately.

An estimated 215,000 people attended a rally organized by Comedy Central talk show hosts Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert Saturday in Washington, according to a crowd estimate commissioned by CBS News.

The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance at the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which took place on the Mall in Washington. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent. (See some of the pictures used to create the estimate here.)

CBS News also commissioned AirPhotosLive.com to do a crowd estimate of Glenn Beck’s “Restoring Honor” rally in August. That rally was estimated to have attracted 87,000 people. Amid criticism from conservatives that the estimate was low, CBS News detailed the methodology behind it here.

So where did the “KeyPro” picture come from? Who took it? How do you know when it was taken? Why is it at odds with all the other estimates? Why did it only show up as an anonoymously sourced pice on a wingnut cesspit? Who stands behind it?

The crazy attendance inflation spin started as soon as yesterday. On her Facebook page Sarah Palin claimed that the event, “drew an estimated crowd of 300,000 – 500,000.” Yesterday, Michele Bachmann told the Washington Post, “We’re not going to let anyone get away with saying there were less than a million here today – because we were witnesses.” Beck got into the game on Fox News Sunday, when he estimated a crowd of 400,000-600,000.

This is the latest bomb for Beck and Freedom Works, or has everyone already forgotten the 9/12 protest which was supposed to be the largest march on Washington ever, but only drew 30,000-75,000 people? For the sake of contrast, there were two Iraq war protests on Washington that were larger than the 9/12 protest, and rivaled yesterday’s rally in terms of size. The conservative estimate of the crowd size by Air Photos Live is 87,000, and this is probably in the right ballpark.

It is obvious that the people with a political or self interest in this, Palin, Bachmann, and Beck are wildly overinflating the attendance number. Beck seemed to have been counting the combination of his own and Sarah Palin’s popularity to bring in the masses, but Beck has been in a ratings slide for much of 2010, and Sarah Palin’s ability to draw a crowd is a well documented and exaggerated myth. The truth is that Beck keeps holding these rallies, and they all underperform. The Tea Party is not that big or influential. While this event was not a disaster, it has to be disappointed to Right Wing activists that they, not the general public, made up most of the crowd yesterday.

The downsizing of the Republican Party to its ideological core means that rallies like this one aren’t going to attract large numbers of people. Beck and Palin are pushing the fantasy of real America as the silent majority, but this is not the truth. The American political landscape is mostly made up of people in the middle, and divisive figures of the far Right like Beck and Palin do not appeal to the middle. Beck and Palin aren’t as popular as they or their followers would like to believe.

pho, are you actually pinning your hopes and dreams on american political rally count outcome spats?

peculiar, why a librarian from nz would be so caught up in our blog here, i mean a super-duper brilliant guy like yourself ought to be on the roster for a lot more important high profile banter.. (no disrespect to CSPT mr Pico )

you need a life, or at least it is time for you throw a nugget out there to pretend to us you have a life and significance. i am home with a mild case of the flu and lots of time on my hands this week,(and according to perry im angry and scared lol) what is your excuse?

Anyone who doesn’t like the message can always attack the messenger. It’s shortsighted and ultimately unproductive, but there is precedent for it, albeit from those who refuse to see what’s right under their own noses.

you need a life, or at least it is time for you throw a nugget out there to pretend to us you have a life and significance. i am home with a mild case of the flu and lots of time on my hands this week,(and according to perry im angry and scared lol) what is your excuse?

Well, my gf has just gone to work; I’m still in bed (at 8.15 or so), about to get up and get breakfast, and then spend the day working on a assessment for a tertiary course, maybe going into work to use the computer systems there. The assessment involves information resource searching and evaluation with about five different databases. Yesterday, I managed to con her into going for a walk up Hawkins Hill towards the radar dome – she took pictures of an ostrich which I believe was trying to court her. On Friday we’re taking the day off, and driving north for the weekend to attend a garden festival. Life’s pretty good.

peculiar, why a librarian from nz would be so caught up in our blog here,

I’m not that brilliant assinhead. The problem is that you’re so abysmally ignorant and you’re judging me on a relative basis.

aotc, the truth is that he’s been banned from so many other sites that only a misguided and overly indulgent teddy bear like Dana will tolerate his vile comments. Consequently, we all suffer the misfortune of his malevolence so Dana can say he supports free and open dialogue, Dana’s skirts are kept clean.

AirPhotosLive.com is correct that trying to count oblique photos is unsatisfactory, which is why we don’t: we use the oblique photos to get geography bounds on the crowd against landmarks, and then make a range of estimates using the Park Service’s own standards for crowd density.

The Beck rally covered roughly 2.4 million square feet and by AirPhotosLive’s own photographs large parts of that area were packed as densely as any overhead picture of Stewart/Colbert. The Stewart/Colbert rally had, at most, about 6/10th the space — 1.62 million square feet vs. 2.4 million. For it to have had that many people, they would have had to be packed about 6.7 times more densely than the densest parts of the Beck crowd.

Not a chance. Not even if they were packed in olive oil.

NZT said:

A messenger who has to lie to make himself look relevant probably isn’t worth listening to.

NZT relies on CBS, that organization who got caught red-handed in RatherGate, that “fake but accurate” (aka a lie) report on GWBs time in the military. NZT also lies on a regular basis and resorts to homoerotic vulgarities and other vulgarities to personally attack people and has been banned from many a site for his disgusting behavior.

The Restoring Honor rally had more than double the number as the Restoring Vanity rally, dimwit. Photographic evidence proves it. You go right ahead and believe CBS, an organization that got caught red-handed lying about Bush’s military service, instead of the actual photographic evidence proving CBS is, yet again, an organization of leftist liars.

“And yeah, whistler, stand up in support of radical islamists, communists, and pedophiles who want to legalize pedophilia.”

Um, no. And you sound like a nutter. I know Jon Stewart says I have to not demonize you, so I’ll say I’m sure you’re probably capable of carrying yourself normally in society, most likely you might even be a nice fellow. But the things you say are still really really crazy. And really quite radical. I’ve been spending the last two years watching my supposedly radical commie President pre-emptively compromise with you guys without getting a single thing for it except the votes of people who were already supposedly Democrats.

I mean, you’re sitting there trying to argue about Beck’s smaller numbers, which Mike and I predicted you guys would be doing immediately, but we’re forgetting that GLENN BECK IS A F’ING FRUITCAKE. What does the man have to say to turn you guys off? He could start flinging feces at the camera and conducting his telecasts from the bosom of a wetnurse and you guys would be all, AT LEAST HE SUPPORTS FREEDOM YOU COMMIES!

I dunno, but the second a rightwinger says “commie” I think it’s clear the argument is already over, and they’re just trying to substitute noise for reason. Call it Whistler’s law.

BTW, even though anything you hear on CBS is more reliable than anything you hear on FOX, they didn’t do the estimate.

The company AirPhotosLive.com based the attendance at the “Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear” on aerial pictures it took over the rally, which took place on the Mall in Washington. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 10 percent.

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

Hube: Yay, yet another rightwing Dick Tracy. This one forgets the Reflecting Pool is in the middle of the Beck rally.

I trust an outfit whose specialty is estimating crowds for various clients vs. some amateur with a calculator who can’t even be bothered to count the heads.

You guys *always* do this stuff. Whenever you don’t like what you hear, somebody on the right-o-sphere is ready to whip up something truthy enough to ease your worries. Screw methodology, deliver the bias. And then you sit and lecture other people about objectivity and not twisting the truth to fit preconceived notions.

And of course, proper methodology of statisticians, whose professional expertise, independent of any US Government money, the Cons continue to believe our lying government. Again, disdain for academia, characteristic of Fascism.

This one forgets the Reflecting Pool is in the middle of the Beck rally.

Whistler forgets the green grass to the left of the Reflecting Pool in the picture is as wide as the whole center of the Insane Rally, and as full of people. Whistler also forgets all the area to the right of the Reflecting Pool. Whistler also forgets the whole depth of the crowd.

Why don’t you look at the map below the picture showing the area involved before you look so foolish next time you spout a meme you saw on some other leftist site?

aww, i was just offering free health advice pho. electrophysiology is real science. and you progressives are getting really anxious and its exhibited here you all are edgy type A personalities. but, whatever… carry on

“Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution.” — Phoenician in a time of Romans

I trust an outfit whose specialty is estimating crowds for various clients vs. some amateur with a calculator who can’t even be bothered to count the heads.

You guys *always* do this stuff. Whenever you don’t like what you hear, somebody on the right-o-sphere is ready to whip up something truthy enough to ease your worries. Screw methodology, deliver the bias. And then you sit and lecture other people about objectivity and not twisting the truth to fit preconceived notions.

Of course you will, Whistler. Until, of course, that outfit conflicts with what your dogmatic narrative tells you. (And if you read the thread, the Reflecting Pool area was subtracted from the calculations.) I honestly could care less what the figures were for each rally. But I don’t trust CBS nor any other MSM outfit when it comes to honestly reporting on a guy like Beck.

And please spare your sanctimonious lecturing about “always doing this stuff.” You cretins have no one else to blame but yourselves and the lapdog MSM for the distrust conservatives have for you and yours. Yeah — CBS … fake George W. Bush National Guard story right before the election. And you fops wonder why Fox News’ popularity is so sky high?

Maybe you’ll write a self-congratulatory post about it over at Iowa Liberal. Again.

John Hitchcock, a credible organization used science to measure the crowd sizes, so suck it up and move forward.

Just like credible organizations proved there was no systematic disenfranchisement of Florida voters in 2000. But you keep pushing that dogma, don’t you — just like John Kerry and myriad other pathetic race baiters.

Yeah, Hube, while you’re still here: That was a pretty sneaky trick you pulled to publish the dissenting minority opinion of the Civil Service Commission which investigated the 2000 Florida voting and vote counting irregularities, for which I, at the time unknowing, gave you my kudos. PiaToR has straightened your rear end out on that one, therefore I retract my kudos, and in exchange offer you my condemnation for your dirty trick.

Yeah, Hube, while you’re still here: That was a pretty sneaky trick you pulled to publish the dissenting minority opinion of the Civil Service Commission which investigated the 2000 Florida voting and vote counting irregularities, for which I, at the time unknowing, gave you my kudos. PiaToR has straightened your rear end out on that one, therefore I retract my kudos, and in exchange offer you my condemnation for your dirty trick.

Yeah — a commission made up of 4 liberals and only two conservatives … the latter two of which actually proved their case scientifically and rationally that there was no systematic disenfranchisement of Florida voters in 2000. This is not unlike a SCOTUS decision with the huge difference being that in this case we don’t have to accept the ridiculous platitudes proffered by Mary Frances Berry and the majority.

I’m sure you think that since Citizens United was decided by a majority (of conservatives) that it is the rightly decided answer, hmm? At least with regards to FL 2000 there’s actual statistical science etc. involved.

And you know where you can stuff your condemnation. At least I actually had a clue about the situation, not relying on what Olbermann, Schultz, Kos and the DU told me about it.

“Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution.” — Phoenician in a time of Romans
Yes, Hube – but when it was pointed out I was wrong, I acknowledged my mistake and moved on. This is because I am a liberal, and deal with reality,

My GOD, Hube, you have been SPANKED over this whole affair. You cite something as an authority, and when I go to that authority and find it says exactly the opposite of the quote from the wingnut you chose, you desperately point at the dissenting opinion, only to have me not only point out that it draws on an anaIysis of one of the biggest academic frauds aroung but that that same fraud has since abandoned the anaIysis!!!

What are you going to do now – continue to insist that the dissent is more relevant than the evidence presented in the report when THE ANAIYIST BEHIND THE DISSENT HAS ABANDONED IT?!?!?!?

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

Yeah — a commission made up of 4 liberals and only two conservatives … the latter two of which actually proved their case scientifically and rationally that there was no systematic disenfranchisement of Florida voters in 2000.

Hube, as I have pointed oyt again and again, the anaIyst they used has since abandoned his stance. Further, the dissent was dealt with in the report itself – see Appendix X.

This supplemental report provides additional evidence confirming the finding in my first report of wide disparities between ballot rejection rates for blacks and non-blacks in the presidential election of 2000 in Florida. It also examines issues raised in the statement of dissenting commissioners and the accompanying statistical report by Dr. John Lott submitted to the Senate Committee on Rules in late July of 2001.[1] In particular, this report comprehensively examines the question of whether other factors such as poverty, income, education, literacy, and first-time voting account for racial disparities in ballot rejection. The supplemental report demonstrates the following:

1. The finding in my initial report of major racial disparities in ballot rejection rates in Florida’s 2000 presidential election is confirmed by additional evidence of what actually happened in voter precincts in three additional counties.

2. The dissenters’ statistical consultant admitted before the Senate Committee on Rules that “a greater percentage of black and Hispanic people are turned away than, or don’t get to vote, than white people.” The dissenters concede that African Americans in Florida had their ballots rejected at a rate at least triple that of non-African Americans.

3. Racial disparities in ballot rejection rates cannot be explained by differences between blacks and non-blacks in education, income, or any other factor pointed to by the dissenters.

4. The relationship between race and ballot rejection remains substantial and statistically significant even within comprehensive models with much greater explanatory power than any of the models presented by dissenters.

5. Although the dissenters offer education and literacy as explanations for ballot rejection, the statistical models developed by their consultant do not show the importance of these variables. These models also exclude other key variables, include redundant variables, explain relatively little of the variation in ballot rejection among counties, and are contradicted by precinct-level results.

6. The dissenting opinion, which relies heavily on Dr. Lott’s improperly designed and conducted statistical report, provides no credible discussion of the issues posed by the study of ballot rejection in Florida’s presidential election.

So let’s contrast:

When PiaToR is wrong, he admits the mistake and moves on. When Hube is shown to be wrong, he whines, ignores the evidence proving him wrong, and goes silent rather than deal with face facts.

Which sums up the difference between liberals and wingnuts quite nicely.

When PiaToR is wrong, he admits the mistake and moves on. When Hube is shown to be wrong, he whines, ignores the evidence proving him wrong, and goes silent rather than deal with face facts.

Actually, when Hube is wrong he does the same. He does this, however, when he is actually proven wrong. You haven’t done so. There’s a big difference between an actual, salient fact (Jefferson not writing the Constitution) and differences of opinion regarding statistical anaIysis pertaining to myriad permutations. Even the Appendix you cite as “proof” is just more opinion that differs from Thernstrom, et. al. Period. You also haven’t adequately explained the grand GOP “conspiracy” of “suppressing” the black vote in FL when Democrats actually controlled the areas in which the vast majority of blacks voted.

For all six counties examined with precinct-level results, the rate of rejected ballots by African Americans ranged from about 6.5 percent to about 24 percent. For all six counties, the unweighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by blacks was 16.9 percent. In contrast, the ballot rejection rate for non-African Americans ranged from about 2 percent to 6 percent. The unweighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by non-blacks was 3.7 percent, for a gap of 13.2 percentage points. For all six counties, the weighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by blacks was 14.0 percent, meaning that nearly one of seven African Americans who entered the polling booth in these counties had their ballots rejected as invalid. The weighted mean rejection rate for non-blacks was 3.5 percent, for a gap of 10.5 percent. These results are comparable to the difference in ballot rejection rates of 12.8 percent for blacks and non-blacks statewide derived from the county-level ecological regression analysis of my first report. The racial divide of 10.5 percent net means that as compared to non-blacks 30,000 additional African Americans had their ballots rejected in these six counties alone. Statewide, a racial gap of 10.5 percent would mean that as compared to non-blacks, more than 60,000 additional African American voters had their ballots rejected in Florida’s 2000 presidential election.

or

Despite the stringent controls included in this model, the relationship between race and ballot rejection is substantial and statistically significant at levels beyond the stringent .01 standard used in social science. The regression coefficient for the percentage of black voters, reported in Table 5S, is .143, which corresponds to a difference in ballot rejection of 14.3 percentage points between blacks and non-blacks, controlling for the variables in the equation. This coefficient value is almost identical to the coefficient reported above without the additional variables.[6] None of the socio-economic variables in this comprehensive model, however, have a statistically significant influence on ballot rejection rates. Neither does the variable measuring changes in voter turnout between 1996 and 2000, a variable that would partly capture the phenomenon of first-time voting

or

The dissenting opinion—as opposed to the statistical report—in both its initial and revised form cited education, literacy, and first-time voting as the key explanatory factors accounting for the relationship between race and ballot rejection in Florida’s 2000 presidential election (see pp. 21–24). Despite this emphasis on education, literacy, and first-time voting, of the 8 statistical models of ballot rejection in the 2000 presidential election in Dr. Lott’s initial report, not a single model included variables measuring education, literacy, or first-time voting. He does not explain his exclusion of education and first-time voting, but does attempt to justify his omission of literacy by claiming that my initial report “does not reference data on literacy rates.” (Lott report, p. 4). Yet in my initial report I fully defined my literacy variable, precisely reported its source, and provided printouts of the data for each of the 67 Florida counties. I provided the same information for my use of educational data. Indeed, the dissenters’ own report, as distinct from Dr. Lott’s statistical supplement, includes an extensive discussion of my use of literacy data. In the current revision of his report, Dr. Lott somehow discovers the literacy data and includes it in an additional eight models that he presents in his revised report.

Appendix X demolished the dissenter’s objections so comprehensively that John Lott abandoned the claims he made. The only person defending it is you, and the basis for your objection appears to be “I don’t understand what Lichtman is saying therefore it is only opinion”.

It is not opinion. It is statistical anaIysis. The reason why you don’t understand it is because you are ignorant. And the fact is that:

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

Even the Appendix you cite as “proof” is just more opinion that differs from Thernstrom, et. al. Period.

Here’s the Appendix again, Hube.

Do please tell us where the opinion comes in for statements such as:

For all six counties examined with precinct-level results, the rate of rejected ballots by African Americans ranged from about 6.5 percent to about 24 percent. For all six counties, the unweighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by blacks was 16.9 percent. In contrast, the ballot rejection rate for non-African Americans ranged from about 2 percent to 6 percent. The unweighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by non-blacks was 3.7 percent, for a gap of 13.2 percentage points. For all six counties, the weighted mean rejection rate for ballots cast by blacks was 14.0 percent, meaning that nearly one of seven African Americans who entered the polling booth in these counties had their ballots rejected as invalid. The weighted mean rejection rate for non-blacks was 3.5 percent, for a gap of 10.5 percent. These results are comparable to the difference in ballot rejection rates of 12.8 percent for blacks and non-blacks statewide derived from the county-level ecological regression anaIysis of my first report. The racial divide of 10.5 percent net means that as compared to non-blacks 30,000 additional African Americans had their ballots rejected in these six counties alone. Statewide, a racial gap of 10.5 percent would mean that as compared to non-blacks, more than 60,000 additional African American voters had their ballots rejected in Florida’s 2000 presidential election.

or

Despite the stringent controls included in this model, the relationship between race and ballot rejection is substantial and statistically significant at levels beyond the stringent .01 standard used in social science. The regression coefficient for the percentage of black voters, reported in Table 5S, is .143, which corresponds to a difference in ballot rejection of 14.3 percentage points between blacks and non-blacks, controlling for the variables in the equation. This coefficient value is almost identical to the coefficient reported above without the additional variables.[6] None of the socio-economic variables in this comprehensive model, however, have a statistically significant influence on ballot rejection rates. Neither does the variable measuring changes in voter turnout between 1996 and 2000, a variable that would partly capture the phenomenon of first-time voting

or

The dissenting opinion—as opposed to the statistical report—in both its initial and revised form cited education, literacy, and first-time voting as the key explanatory factors accounting for the relationship between race and ballot rejection in Florida’s 2000 presidential election (see pp. 21–24). Despite this emphasis on education, literacy, and first-time voting, of the 8 statistical models of ballot rejection in the 2000 presidential election in Dr. Lott’s initial report, not a single model included variables measuring education, literacy, or first-time voting. He does not explain his exclusion of education and first-time voting, but does attempt to justify his omission of literacy by claiming that my initial report “does not reference data on literacy rates.” (Lott report, p. 4). Yet in my initial report I fully defined my literacy variable, precisely reported its source, and provided printouts of the data for each of the 67 Florida counties. I provided the same information for my use of educational data. Indeed, the dissenters’ own report, as distinct from Dr. Lott’s statistical supplement, includes an extensive discussion of my use of literacy data. In the current revision of his report, Dr. Lott somehow discovers the literacy data and includes it in an additional eight models that he presents in his revised report.

Appendix X demolished the dissenter’s objections so comprehensively that John Lott himself abandoned the claims he made. The only person defending it is you, and the basis for your objection appears to be “I don’t understand what Lichtman is saying therefore it is only opinion”.

It is not opinion. It is statistical anaIysis. The reason why you don’t understand it is because you are ignorant. And the fact is that:

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

See — even Allan Lichtman, whom you cite, says “I pointed no fingers of blame at supervisors or any other officials, but called for studies to determine the causes of disparate treatment of black voters in Florida.” Except that … you and Perry did precisely that. And that has been my stance since day one — that there is no evidence of systematic disenfranchisement of [black] voters in Florida in 2000. But that being said, Lichtman ignores:

1) Since your fourth paragraph’s “electoral officials” were Democrats and the bulk of questioned precincts were Democrat controlled, why would they sabotage Al Gore? Precinct politicians are meticulous about acknowledgement and prerogatives; glaring political incompetance by so many politicians is highly improbable. The ballots were designed by Democrats and had been used in a primary just months before with few problems. In an apparent rush to condemn, you skim this matter in paras 6 & 7, but never explain why so many local Democrat officials helped W.

A conundrum! So, if Lichtman “isn’t pointing fingers at anyone,” what’s the explanation? You and Perry have already opined that some GOP conspiracy is to blame to give the election to George Bush — which, of course, overlooks the fact that Democrats by and large controlled the areas in which blacks voted and had their votes counted.

Appendix X demolished the dissenter’s objections so comprehensively that John Lott himself abandoned the claims he made. The only person defending it is you, and the basis for your objection appears to be “I don’t understand what Lichtman is saying therefore it is only opinion”.

Even Lichtman doesn’t assign blame nor claim there was a systematic attempt to thwart black voting. (Yet he does ignore who exactly ran those voting areas!) That’s precisely what I’ve claimed since DAY ONE. Exactly this. You can keep repeating “Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election,” but that doesn’t change the FACT on iota that — wait for it — there was no systematic and purposeful attempt to disenfranchise black voters. Indeed, that “purge” still allowed thousands of felons who weren’t permitted to vote to do precisely that.

but this rally. you know, jon stewart wanted to mock the crazy yokel americans on the right? may have been the best rally cry to get out the right wing yokel vote evah. nothing like calling your majority lizard brained enemy stupid and and crazy to push them out to the polls to “learn them smartypants a lesson they’ll not soon ferget”

jon stewart is ironically not that smart. but nevertheless, ironic. lol

go ahead progressives, keep on mocking. us lizard brains dont know enough to be hurt and emotionally manipulated dont you know, we animals just do what our primitive brains tell us. we dont emote and try to figure it out, the fastest “out” for us dimwits this time is the voting booth pulling “r”. duh. your superior intellect is complicating things for you. you need to start thinking like the snakes you are.

hey perry, since you now have a new role model to follow for civility, ill offer this. in his own words. mr jon stewart:

The Commission report concluded that its investigation had not uncovered “conclusive evidence” that state officials were involved in a conspiracy to keep minorities from voting.

That wording alone shows that the Commission was liberal/Democrat dominated since

… in 24 of the 25 Florida counties with the highest rates of ballot spoilage, the electoral machinery was in the hands of Democratic local officials, and in the 25th the supervisor of elections was an Independent. The choice of voting technology and of counting procedures, that is, had nothing to do with Governor Bush and Secretary of State Harris.

Even Lichtman doesn’t assign blame nor claim there was a systematic attempt to thwart black voting. (Yet he does ignore who exactly ran those voting areas!) That’s precisely what I’ve claimed since DAY ONE.

Well DONE on attempting to change the goal posts there, Hube. Not good enough, of course.

Readers will, of course, remember that you were, in fact, denying that there was in fact any such disenfranchishment since DAY ONE.

Perry: On top of that, we had voter suppression of black votes by the Republicans in FL; but that is another topic.

Hube: A theory that is absolute bullshit and backed up by no credible evidence whatsoever.

And then, of course, you spent your time arguing that there was no voter suppression – and got your ass spanked.

You are, of course, confusing a “systematic attempt” with assigning blame. As the report clearly states in the executive summary:

The Commission calls upon the attorney general of the United States to immediately begin the litigation process to determine liability under the VRA and appropriate remedies. The Commission is a fact-finding body, authorized to investigate allegations of voting discrimination, fraud, and other irregularities. However, it does not adjudicate violations of the law, hold trials, or determine civil or criminal liability. It is within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice and Florida law enforcement officials to seek appropriate sanctions and remedies. In addition to calling on the attorney general to initiate the litigation process on this issue, the Commission requests this action on a number of other issues as well, such as Florida’s handling of its voter roll purge and its failure to accommodate voters with disabilities and limited English proficiency.

The reason why they don’t “assign blame” is because, legally, they cannot assign blame. It is their job to uncover evidence of voter discrimination which they did, and the job of others to prosecute.

Of course the county officials in the mostly black counties most affected by the discrimination are mostly Democrat – the counties were mostly Democrat. But, oops, you seem to have overlooked this bit:

Purging Former Felons from the Voter Rolls

Individuals not legally entitled to vote should not be allowed to vote. Appropriate efforts to eliminate fraudulent voting strengthen the rights of legitimate voters. In fact, there are already laws in place in Florida that make it a crime to vote unlawfully. However, poorly designed efforts to eliminate fraud, as well as sloppy and irresponsible implementation of those efforts, disenfranchise legitimate voters and can be a violation of the VRA. Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

The purge system in Florida proceeded on the premise of guilty until proven innocent. In 1998, the Florida legislature enacted a statute that required the Division of Elections to contract with a private entity to purge its voter file of deceased persons, duplicate registrants, individuals declared mentally incompetent, and convicted felons without civil rights restoration, i.e., remove ineligible voter registrants from voter registration rolls. This purge process became known as list maintenance. Once on the list, the process places the burden on the eligible voter to justify remaining on the voter rolls. The ubiquitous errors and dearth of effective controls in the state’s list maintenance system resulted in the exclusion of voters lawfully entitled and properly registered to vote.

African American voters were placed on purge lists more often and more erroneously than Hispanic or white voters. For instance, in the state’s largest county, Miami-Dade, more than 65 percent of the names on the purge list were African Americans, who represented only 20.4 percent of the population. Hispanics were 57.4 percent of the population, but only 16.6 percent of the purge list; whites were 77.6 percent of the population but 17.6 percent of those purged.

Florida easily could have, and should have, done much more to protect the voting rights of African Americans and other Floridians. What should have been done include the following:

* The governor, the secretary of state, or the director of the Division of Elections should have provided clear instructions to their subordinates on list maintenance strategies that would protect eligible voters from being erroneously purged from the voter registration rolls. Two key failings accounted for a large portion of the purge-related disenfranchisement:
o The Division of Elections failed to recommend the same cautionary steps before the November 2000 presidential election that were taken before the 1998 election. At that time, supervisors of elections were asked to verify the exclusion lists with the greatest of care. They were asked to provide opportunities for persons to vote by affidavit ballot in those instances in which the voter made a credible challenge to his or her removal from the voter registration rolls.
o Inadequate supervision of Division of Elections staff allowed irresponsible decisions to be made, including an official of the Division of Elections encouraging an error-laden strategy that resulted in the removal of a disproportionate number of eligible African American voters from the rolls.
* State officials should have provided adequate training to supervisors of elections in purge verification procedures.

The purposeful use of erroneous listings to promote the state’s purging priorities and the permanent disenfranchisement of discharged felons raise important questions of fundamental fairness. The state’s aggressive purging laws, policies, and practices disproportionately affect African Americans, who are disproportionately charged, convicted, and sentenced in the criminal justice system. The Commission questions Florida’s onerous and infrequently rendered clemency process. Former offenders who have paid their debt to society should have citizenship rights restored, which is already done in 36 states. Further, the report expresses disappointment that the recently enacted legislation failed to address the issue of automatic restoration of voting rights for former felons and asks that the governor recommend reform in this area of state law.

Quite clearly, the Commission places the responsibilty at the State level; quite clearly they are indicating a “purposeful” attempt to disenfrancise African-Americans disproportionately.

Which Lichtman proved.

We notice you no longer seem to be attempting to defend the statistical anaIsis even its own author abandoned. But, you know, you were swearing by it just a moment agao – and now you seem to have forgotten about it.

Strange how your passionate convictions change so suddenly.

So, in summary:

i, There was evidence of voter suppression.

ii, The Commission which you first bought up found that it included the “purposeful use of erroneous listings”, which makes it systematic

iii, The finger was pointed at the State level – specifically “The governor, the secretary of state, or the director of the Division of Elections” (all of whom, surprise, surprise, were Republican) and the call was made for a DoJ investigation.

Once again:

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election.

The Commission report concluded that its investigation had not uncovered “conclusive evidence” that state officials were involved in a conspiracy to keep minorities from voting.

That wording alone shows that the Commission was liberal/Democrat dominated since

… in 24 of the 25 Florida counties with the highest rates of ballot spoilage, the electoral machinery was in the hands of Democratic local officials, and in the 25th the supervisor of elections was an Independent. The choice of voting technology and of counting procedures, that is, had nothing to do with Governor Bush and Secretary of State Harris.

EXACT cite, please. I’m going to guess thatthis doesn’t even appear in the report, buit in the dissenting statement which has just been demolished – which is why you dishonestly did not include a link.

EXACT cite, please. I’m going to guess that this doesn’t even appear in the report, buit in the dissenting statement which has just been demolished – which is why you dishonestly did not include a link.

Well DONE on attempting to change the goal posts there, Hube. Not good enough, of course. Readers will, of course, remember that you were, in fact, denying that there was in fact any such disenfranchishment since DAY ONE.

Really? Readers can read for themselves exactly what I argued — that there was no systematic disenfranchisement of Florida voters. If one looks back at the various threads where I may have omitted “systematic” or other synonyms, then I offer my apologies.

Quite clearly, the Commission places the responsibilty at the State level; quite clearly they are indicating a “purposeful” attempt to disenfrancise African-Americans disproportionately.

No, the liberal bloc of the Commission places that blame there. And notice it only concerns the felon purge list — the same list which somehow permitted over 6000 felons to illegally vote. Quite clearly, liberal/Democrats would not want to assign blame to the 24 of 25 Democratic counties which were run by Democrats now, would they? How would that look when formulating their “racist GOP” theory?

We notice you no longer seem to be attempting to defend the statistical anaIsis even its own author abandoned. But, you know, you were swearing by it just a moment agao – and now you seem to have forgotten about it.

Since I am admittedly ignorant of anaIyzing such data myself, I personally cannot adequately ascertain Lott’s anaIysis. From what I have seen thus far, you are going on Lichtman’s word only that Lott retracted his anaIysis. In addition, it seems that in one crucial instance, Lichtman purposely twisted Lott’s terminology to make the latter appear to say something he did not (the percentages of AA Republicans and ballot spoilage). I am still trying to find concrete confirmation that Lott indeed retracted his anaIysis. If I discover such, I will happily retract that aspect of my comments made here.

So, in summary:

i, There was evidence of voter suppression.

It may appear that way.

ii, The Commission which you first bought up found that it included the “purposeful use of erroneous listings”, which makes it systematic

“Purposeful and erroneous listings?” The same listings which “purposefully and erroneously” forgot to omit over 6000 felons which were then illegally permitted to vote? Is that “systematic” too?

iii, The finger was pointed at the State level – specifically “The governor, the secretary of state, or the director of the Division of Elections” (all of whom, surprise, surprise, were Republican) and the call was made for a DoJ investigation.

Of course it was, as noted above. What a surprise! But again, this references the felon purge list only, not the hassles encountered locally at voting places. Oops.

I e-mailed John Lott to ask if he retracted (or “abandoned” as Phoeny used) his Election 2000 anaIysis from Florida — something which Phoeny posted that his source, Allan Lichtman claimed — and here is his response, received but a few short minutes ago:

from John Lott (johnrlott@aol.com)
to Hube (colossusofrhodey@gmail.com)

Well, that claim is news to me. Attached is the paper that I published in the Journal of Legal Studies on this issue and Lichtman’s response. I have never backed away from anything that I wrote on this issue.There were somewhat different results for the panel versus purely cross-sectional data, but, as I clearly explained, that is to be expected. My job was to report all the results using all the available data. The results in the attached JLS piece do indicate:

“I find that to the extent that these types of regressions measure discrimination, it is African-American Republicans who were harmed. Indeed, the nonvoted ballot rate for white Republicans is higher than for white or African-American Democrats. The data also indicate that nonvoted ballot rates are highest in those counties where Democrats are the election supervisors.”

All I did in these regressions was take the estimates that those claiming that there had been discrimination and use the more detailed breakdown by race and party rather than just race. So I looked at not just blacks, but black Democrats and black Republicans.

This is the last piece that I have published on this topic. If it is necessary, I can go back through my numbers and see my exact estimates, but Lichtman has regularly misinterpreted what I wrote. Just his couple paragraphs in JLS response is somewhat over the top.

Hube: nice red herring. Surely a dispute over a 500 vote disparity is the same as the science of crowd size measurement.

It’s really simple: Crowd size experts who make that their business trumps rightwing blogger.

Every time. If they want to engage with AirPhotos and argue methodology with them, I’d love to see it.

Until then, right-wingers have demonstrated that time and time again they will throw feces at any scientific analysis if it crosses their political agenda. You may know my name, I’m Henry “Down with science” Whistler, and rightwing junk science hacks really hate me. Ask DNW or ropelight. Maybe you too, but when Dr. Mann was exonerated multiple times for accusations of fudging climate change numbers I don’t remember you offering any mea culpas.

aotc, the truth is that he’s been banned from so many other sites that only a misguided and overly indulgent teddy bear like Dana will tolerate his vile comments. Consequently, we all suffer the misfortune of his malevolence so Dana can say he supports free and open dialogue, Dana’s skirts are kept clean.

Pho’s generally nasty and unpleasant demeanor shows the typical left wing personality. These people hate freedom, hate the American ideals set forth by our Founders, and want to impose instead a government stuffed with bureaucratic mediocrities like themselves to rule over their betters.

Since more people showed up in DC this past weekend than showed up to see weepy Glenn Beck I’m sure the cable news networks (librullamestreammsm) are devoting hours of talk time towards asking politicians what they plan on doing to appease this latest populist tidal wave, right? Right?

Eric, while I’m uncompromising in my denunciation of the cancer infecting this site, I still hope that honorable Democrats, reasonable adult Americans who reject the insane agenda of the far left-wing ideologues, will rise up, take back their party, and re-assume their rightful place as full partners in the political life of our nation.

I left this link for all to see, this documentary makes clear the disenfranchisement of Black Americans. I thought I left it here last night, before I went to bed, and I can’t find it now. So, if folks that are interested in learning facts, I will leave it here again. Seems I can’t find it now. It’s called American Blackout

Hube: nice red herring. Surely a dispute over a 500 vote disparity is the same as the science of crowd size measurement.

Uh, what?

It’s really simple: Crowd size experts who make that their business trumps rightwing blogger.

If it’s really that simple, I wonder what the [rightwing] bloggers who exposed CBS’s fraud story about GW Bush would say about that. After all, ain’t CBS in the business of researching and reporting [accurate] new stories?

Oops.

Every time. If they want to engage with AirPhotos and argue methodology with them, I’d love to see it.

You didn’t even check that link, did’ja?

Until then, right-wingers have demonstrated that time and time again they will throw feces at any scientific analysis if it crosses their political agenda.

Uh huh. Like totally banning DDT even though moderate amounts can save millions of lives without environmental damage, you mean? Oh, wait, that left-wingers “demonstrating that time and time again they will throw feces at any scientific analysis if it crosses their political agenda.” Sorry, this stuff is a two-way street.

Maybe you too, but when Dr. Mann was exonerated multiple times for accusations of fudging climate change numbers I don’t remember you offering any mea culpas.

Maybe that’s b/c 1) I happen to believe in climate change, 2) but I don’t necessarily buy that man is the main culprit behind it, and 3) those supposed “exonerations” still left a lot to be desired about the antics of scientists like Mann. You and who you were arguing with didn’t seem to want to accept any sort of moderation in that … “debate” IIRC.

Oh, and just one more bit of info for Phoeny on his conspiracy theory that the Florida GOP was purposefully trying to disenfranchise black voters in 2000:

But the liberal-leaning Palm Beach Post found that “a review of state records, internal e-mails of [company] employees and testimony before the civil rights commission and elections task force showed no evidence that minorities were specifically targeted.” Indeed, the application of the law against felon voting in 2000 skewed somewhat the opposite way: whites were actually the most likely to be erroneously excluded from the voter rolls. The error rate was 9.9% for whites, 8.7% for Hispanics and only 5.1 for African Americans. Furthermore, the list wasn’t created by Katherine Harris or any other Republican. A mandate for the list was passed into law in 1998, sponsored by two Democratic legislators and signed by a Democratic governor, Lawton Chiles, Jeb Bush’s predecessor. The law came about in response to the Miami mayoral election in 1997 that was overturned by a court due to widespread fraud, with votes from disqualified felons and dead people. And Harris had no power to remove voters from the rolls. In Florida’s decentralized election system, that is reserved for elected county supervisors of elections.

This is from John Fund’s book, Stealing Elections.

Now since you keep pasting

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election

as somehow “proof” that the state GOP was sinisterly attempting to disenfranchise African-Americans, how does one account for the above? Even the recommendations you (Phoeny) note above courtesy of the liberal bloc of the USCCR cannot equal a GOP conspiracy for them following the laws/rules established by their Democratic predecessors. Further, when you cite

African American voters were placed on purge lists more often and more erroneously than Hispanic or white voters. For instance, in the state’s largest county, Miami-Dade, more than 65 percent of the names on the purge list were African Americans, who represented only 20.4 percent of the population. Hispanics were 57.4 percent of the population, but only 16.6 percent of the purge list; whites were 77.6 percent of the population but 17.6 percent of those purged

African-Americans being on placed on the list more often implicitly means that “proportionate representation” philosophy applies. IOW, since AAs were only 20.4% of the pop., they therefore must make up approx. that same % of the purge list. However, this doesn’t square at all with nationwide crime statistics for AAs based on their % of the pop., does it? Next, the claim that blacks were on the list erroneously more often directly conflicts with Fund’s (and the dissenting USCCR camp’s) statistics.

Hube you have an opportunity to learn about it the disenfranchisement in the documentary I left the link for. Are you just going to spout off, ignoring the reality? Probably. That, once again leave you with egg on your face, while you espouse you “all knowingness”. Almost funny, but tragic that people like you vote in your intentional ignorance. Ignore all facts that displease you, and you can be perpetually “right”. That is the “right” wing for ya.

Ulsterman at NewsFlavor has another email from his inside source at Obama’s White House, his report is dated 10/31/2010 and was also posted at WorldPolitics.

“A brief emailed message…once again reinforces the significant rift between House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the president–and a looming cloud of scandal now threatening the Obama White House.”
——–
Author’s Note: Despite what is clearly a very work-intensive schedule, we are pleased to have received an email update from our White House Insider source – and equally pleased to be able to share that email with our readers. Tentative plans are being made for another in depth interview following the November elections.
______

“The Wednesday meeting by Democratic Party leaders once again confirmed. White House members involved told to “sit down and shut up.” War within party totally engaged now. Updated election internals showing trends breaking against Democrats as predicated. Now appears we will lose up to 60 seats in House and possibly split Senate. Mood within party very grim – and very angry toward president. I have never seen party members so actively motivated to openly challenge a sitting president in their own party. Trip to India has Dems shaking heads in disbelief. Phrase “running away” being repeated often. WH appears oblivious to situation.

Once again, CLOSELY watch for Pelosi news. Speaker preparing for departure from Congress, but going to burn bridges as she does so – namely all those leading to the White House. Speculation she will assist in clearing way for Congressional investigations against Obama White House in coming year. In effect, Pelosi willing to help take Obama down. Quote from within her office that came back to me as follows, “How that -expletive- idiot ever got elected is beyond me. Well let’s see how he does without me around to carry his -expletive- water.” Pelosi very unhappy receiving directive from WH to not attempt any significant legislation during lame duck session. “Leave a mess for the Republicans.” Pelosi furious over directive as it will further diminish her legacy. I don’t think the lady likes being told what to do…”

Oh, and just one more bit of info for Phoeny on his conspiracy theory that the Florida GOP was purposefully trying to disenfranchise black voters in 2000:

This would be the findings of the USCCR report that you refer to as my “conspiracy theory”?

I e-mailed John Lott

Yes? And yet, strangely enough, you left out your email (since your ability to truthfully represent what others say is questionable at best), and links to the papers Lott mentions. Since, as far as I know, Lott has never dealt with the demolishing of his position which Lichtman gave in Appendix X, I find it very… interesting… that you don’t provide such links so people can see for themselves.

And need I point out yet again that Lott is an academic joke due to sockpuppeting, incorrect anaIysis to fit his desired conclusion, and actually making up surveys?

Now since you keep pasting

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election

as somehow “proof” that the state GOP was sinisterly attempting to disenfranchise African-Americans, how does one account for the above?

You are asking me why I don’t have the legal evidence of guilt, when the USCCR didn’t assign guilt but called for a DoJ investigation into the matter? Your standard is, in fact, that I cannot report on findings that would only come out in court when no court prosecution was made?

African-Americans being on placed on the list more often implicitly means that “proportionate representation” philosophy applies. IOW, since AAs were only 20.4% of the pop., they therefore must make up approx. that same % of the purge list. However, this doesn’t square at all with nationwide crime statistics for AAs based on their % of the pop., does it

So let’s see if I have this straight – you’re saying that the reason why so many people who did not commit felonies and happened to be African-American were purged from the roll was because African-Americans commit more felonies than other people? And that dropping people from a voter list because they had the same skin colour as felons doesn’t constitute discrimination?

If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chad, he might want to look at a “scrub list” of 173,000 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list that included purported “felons” provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.

Early in the year, the company, ChoicePoint, gave Florida officials a list with the names of 8,000 ex-felons to “scrub” from their list of voters. But it turns out none on the list were guilty of felonies, only misdemeanors. The company acknowledged the error, and blamed it on the original source of the list — the state of Texas.

Florida officials moved to put those falsely accused by Texas back on voter rolls before the election. Nevertheless, the large number of errors uncovered in individual counties suggests that thousands of eligible voters may have been turned away at the polls.
[...]
Especially if that president is named “Bush.” ChoicePoint’s board and executive roster are packed with Republican stars, including billionaire Ken Langone, a company director who was chairman of the fund-raising committee for New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s aborted run against Hillary Rodham Clinton. Langone is joined at ChoicePoint by another Giuliani associate, former New York Police Commissioner Howard Safir. And Republican power lobbyist and former congressman Vin Weber lobbies for ChoicePoint in Washington. Just before his death in 1998, Rick Rozar, president of a Choicepoint company, CDB Infotek, donated $100,000 to the Republican Party.

And even though the list has been widely condemned — the company that created it admits probable errors — the same voter scrub list, with more than 94,000 names on it, is still in operation in Florida. Moreover, DBT Online, which generated the disastrously flawed list, reports that if it followed strict criteria to eliminate those errors, roughly 3,000 names would remain — and a whopping 91,000 people would have their voting rights restored.

Eventually the list will be fixed, state officials have promised, in accordance with a settlement with the NAACP in its civil rights suit against Florida following the 2000 election. But not until the beginning of next year — and after Jeb Bush’s reelection bid is long over.

But let us consider this carefully if the situation was reversed.

Let us imagine a group that votes strongly Republican, say white males over 65. Let us imagine that a Democrat run State figured out a way to purge them disproportionatly. Let us imagine that the US agency responsible for sniffing this sort of thing out actually published a report finding this and recommended that the DoJ launch an investigation and prosecution. And let us imagine that there was overwhelmingly strong evidence that this had cost a Republican candidate a vital vote that should have been rightfully his.

ii, The fraud and deceit in Florida has been reported on extensively, and the NACP bought a civil rights suit against Florida on that basis.

iii, the USCCR found voter suppression of blacks, which was systematic, and put the blame at the State level.

Once again:

Florida’s overzealous efforts to purge voters from the rolls, conducted under the guise of an anti-fraud campaign, resulted in the inexcusable and patently unjust removal of disproportionate numbers of African American voters from Florida’s voter registration rolls for the November 2000 election

the Rally to Restore Sanity, naturally bitterly hated by Hitchcock, had more people than Beck’s rally.

Well, we’re going to have a nationwide rally tomorrow, and this time we’ll be actually counting the people. Will there be more at the Beck Restoring Honor rally tomorrow, or the Stewart Restoring Sanity affair, or even the One Nation rally?

We’ll be getting the first attendance numbers from the Kentucky area rally by about 1830-1900 tomorrow!

The 2000 Florida vote? My analysis is that slightly more Floridians went to the polls intending to vote for Al Gore, but, because Republicans are generally smarter and more highly educated than Democrats, slightly more people who intended to vote for George Bush actually cast legitimate, non-spoiled ballots.

There is a slight penalty paid by the party relying on the less intelligent voters, in that the less intelligent are more likely to make a disenfranchising error in casting their ballots; that’s what happened to Al Gore in 2000.

Pho’s generally nasty and unpleasant demeanor shows the typical left wing personality. These people hate freedom, hate the American ideals set forth by our Founders, and want to impose instead a government stuffed with bureaucratic mediocrities like themselves to rule over their betters.

Eric, this statement of yours is without foundation and is total crapola! Moreover, I’m not very impressed with your demeanor on here either!! Shall I fish a few out to make my point?

Perry, I’m not at all pleased with your shilling for someone who is well known for his lying and homoerotic vulgarities targeted at commenters on this blog. I am not at all pleased you would hold him up as an example for emulation. That you do with regularity disgusts me.

he likes pho because pho will say tings that perry wants to say but wont because he want to keep up the facade that he is morally virtuous and has a love of mankind. and, well if he said those things he would be looked at as a pervert at the child agency he volunteers at.

Yes? And yet, strangely enough, you left out your email (since your ability to truthfully represent what others say is questionable at best), and links to the papers Lott mentions. Since, as far as I know, Lott has never dealt with the demolishing of his position which Lichtman gave in Appendix X, I find it very… interesting… that you don’t provide such links so people can see for themselves.

I recently came across an article Allan Lichtman wrote for the History News Network where he claims you backed away from (retracted) your statistical analysis of what happened in Florida in 2000. Is this an accurate claim? In addition, he stated that you “concluded” the following:

Lott asserts that black Republicans “are 54 to 66 times more likely than the average African-American to produce non-voted ballots.” If this claim were true, then the rate of ballot rejection for African-Americans was 540 percent to 660 percent – an impossible 5 to 6 ballots turned aside for every ballot cast.

I seem to recall your analysis said that the data “would imply” the statistics Lichtman cites above, quite different from an “assertion.”

Any insight you could provide for the above would be most appreciated.

As for leaving off the link, since he e-mailed me the two pdf’s, I had to [re]Google and found his for you. I believe he has two revisions/additions up since his original. (Funny how a research-intensive librarian could not discover them for himself …)

You are asking me why I don’t have the legal evidence of guilt, when the USCCR didn’t assign guilt but called for a DoJ investigation into the matter? Your standard is, in fact, that I cannot report on findings that would only come out in court when no court prosecution was made?

Except that, as noted previously here and originally elsewhere, I showed that there was an investigation by the DOJ. And, apparently, they did not find evidence of what you’re asserting. And what precisely are you saying here? You’re not only reporting on the findings… but you’re concluding that the a state GOP conspiracy is responsible. Something which the USCCR did not do nor Allen Lichtman.

So let’s see if I have this straight – you’re saying that the reason why so many people who did not commit felonies and happened to be African-American were purged from the roll was because African-Americans commit more felonies than other people? And that dropping people from a voter list because they had the same skin colour as felons doesn’t constitute discrimination?

No, you’re saying that. And I suggest you look at the quote you provide directly after (in your post) what you wrote above and see if you can possibly make any connection. In addition, I suggest you look at the information provided by Fund’s book which I quoted previously, information not the least of which contradicts what you noted about Katherine Harris and the fact that it was Democrats preceding the then-current GOP state administration which conceived of and instituted the purge list.

Let us imagine a group that votes strongly Republican, say white males over 65. Let us imagine that a Democrat run State figured out a way to purge them disproportionatly.

Why? You’re again making assertions which have no basis in fact based on the evidence. And it ignores virtually everything I, and even you at times, have provided as contrary evidence. Nevertheless, I’ll never forget the scene during election night that night when [Democrat] Robert Wexler got on as many cameras as he could to complain about that infamous “butterfly ballot” — which, he claimed, caused thousands of “elderly Jewish voters” to mistakenly vote for Pat Buchanan. Of course, the infamous ballot was designed by … a Democrat.

ii, The fraud and deceit in Florida has been reported on extensively, and the NACP bought a civil rights suit against Florida on that basis.

iii, the USCCR found voter suppression of blacks, which was systematic, and put the blame at the State level.

1) That may be true; however, you’ve already lied (and/or Lichtman lied) about Lott retracting his anaIysis as I showed in the Lott e-mail. Why is that, I wonder?
2) What has been shown is that errors were made in Florida in 2000 as there is in every state during every election. The fact is that neither you, nor the USCCR, made the case that there was systematic and purposeful disnfranchisement of voters during that election.
3) The liberally dominated bloc of the USCCR said that, and has been refuted by Fund’s source and others throughout this whole back and forth.

Just a few questions, Hube:

i, Should people who are eligible to vote be allowed to vote?
ii, Should African-Americans who are eligible to vote be allowed to vote?
iii, Should African-Americans who are eligible to vote in Florida be allowed to vote?
iv, Do you honestly believe that, in Florida of 2000, the State did all it could to allow African-Americans who are eligible to vote in Florida be allowed to vote?

1) Yes.
2) Yes.
3) Yes.
4) The loaded question, of course. The answer is “probably not,” as anyone who is honest (which I am and try to be, contrary to your usual assholish projections) would have to concede that in any election in any state there is always more that can be done to make the process better. So, with that let me enact my own summary:

1. We both agree that there was irregularities and errors made in FL during election 2000.
2. You (and the liberal bloc of the USCCR) believe that the [state] GOP is responsible (and even conspired) for the preponderance of African-Americans either being on the “no vote” list erroneously or voting in areas with large ballot “spoilage.” (This was, again, Perry’s original assertion to which I called bullshit on, and on which you immediately backed him up.)
3. Except that, as shown, Democrats initiated the felon purge list and ran the voting in 24 of 25 counties that had high black voter spoilage rates. This thus contradicts point 2.
4. You say that the [liberal bloc of the] USCCR wanted a DOJ investigation. I provided a link to testimony of a DOJ official who contradicts many of your/their claims. Whether this representative was part of the investigation the USCCR desired, I am not certain I freely admit. The time frame from the links does suggest the DOJ had sufficient time to investigate.
5. Even Allen Lichtman states he doesn’t assign “blame” for the irregularities and merely wanted further investigation.
6. As noted on the other [main] thread, I’ve already conceded that since I am ignorant about statistics and statistical anaIysis, I cannot authoritatively confirm the accuracy of Lott’s work done for Thernstrom, et. al. Except that, again, he directly refutes your (and Lichtman’s) claim that he’s ever retracted anything he’s written on the subject of Florida 2000.

OK. Personally I think we’ve drained this decade-old subject dry. Feel free to continue if you wish, but I’ve invested too much of my free time on it as it is. I do thank you for vigorous back-and-forth. Such is refreshing at times.

The 2000 Florida vote? My anaIysis is that slightly more Floridians went to the polls intending to vote for Al Gore, but, because Republicans are generally smarter and more highly educated than Democrats, slightly more people who intended to vote for George Bush actually cast legitimate, non-spoiled ballots.

Your anaIysis is nothing but a guess, of course, and doesn’t seem to address how people were “less intelligent” because they had the same skin colour as felons, nor does it address the actual findings of the USCCR as given in their report.

But, Dana, if you want a literacy test or an intelligence test for voters, why not have the guts to come out and say it? I think the results would be pretty amusing.

Hmm, one thing I had wanted to include didn’t make it, regarding this paragraph:

So let’s see if I have this straight – you’re saying that the reason why so many people who did not commit felonies and happened to be African-American were purged from the roll was because African-Americans commit more felonies than other people? And that dropping people from a voter list because they had the same skin colour as felons doesn’t constitute discrimination?

The state mandated the hiring of an outside vendor for $4 million to compile a list of voters who had committed felonies in other states. Database Technologies (now ChoicePoint Inc.), creator of an Internet service widely used by law enforcement agencies for investigative purposes, was chosen to sort through state and national databases to identify felons.

From the beginning, Database Technologies raised serious concerns that non-felons could be misidentified. Florida does not regularly record Social Security numbers in its records, so its felons were identified by name and date of birth, including close but not exact matches.

That’s how the state intended the plan to work.

“Obviously, we want to capture more names that possibly aren’t matches and let the [county elections] supervisors make a final determination rather than exclude certain matches altogether,” said Emmett “Bucky” Mitchell, who headed the state purge effort, in a March 1999 e-mail to Database Technologies product manager Marlene Thorogood, who had warned him of possible mistakes.

iv, Do you honestly believe that, in Florida of 2000, the State did all it could to allow African-Americans who are eligible to vote in Florida be allowed to vote?
[...]
4) The loaded question, of course. The answer is “probably not,” as anyone who is honest (which I am and try to be, contrary to your usual assholish projections) would have to concede that in any election in any state there is always more that can be done to make the process better.

Those findings from the USCCR again:

The disenfranchisement of Florida’s voters fell most harshly on the shoulders of black voters. The magnitude of the impact can be seen from any of several perspectives:

* Statewide, based upon county-level statistical estimates, black voters were nearly 10 times more likely than nonblack voters to have their ballots rejected.
* Estimates indicate that approximately 14.4 percent of Florida’s black voters cast ballots that were rejected. This compares with approximately 1.6 percent of nonblack Florida voters who did not have their presidential votes counted.
* Statistical analysis shows that the disparity in ballot spoilage rates—i.e., ballots cast but not counted—between black and nonblack voters is not the result of education or literacy differences. This conclusion is supported by Governor Jeb Bush’s Select Task Force on Election Procedures, Standards and Technology, which found that error rates stemming from uneducated, uninformed, or disinterested voters account for less than 1 percent of the problems.
* Approximately 11 percent of Florida voters were African American; however, African Americans cast about 54 percent of the 180,000 spoiled ballots in Florida during the November 2000 election based on estimates derived from county-level data. These statewide estimates were corroborated by the results in several counties based on actual precinct data.

Poor counties, particularly those with large minority populations, were more likely to possess voting systems with higher spoilage rates than the more affluent counties with significant white populations. There is a high correlation between counties and precincts with a high percentage of African American voters and the percentage of spoiled ballots. For example:

* Nine of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of African American voters had spoilage rates above the Florida average.
* Of the 10 counties with the highest percentage of white voters, only two counties had spoilage rates above the state average.
* Gadsden County, with the highest rate of spoiled ballots, also had the highest percentage of African American voters.
* Where precinct data were available, the data show that 83 of the 100 precincts with the highest numbers of spoiled ballots are black-majority precincts.

As noted on the other [main] thread, I’ve already conceded that since I am ignorant about statistics and statistical anaIysis,

Yes, we can see that. Allow me to try, once again, to show your problem.

Imagine, in a population of millions, the cancer rate was, say, 1.6% a year – every year, 16 out of every 1000 people would get cancer. Call it Indiana. Imagine that 16 out every 1000 people in Indiana got cancer each year. Can you imagine that, or is it too difficult for you?

Now imagine that in one city of that State (with, say, 11% of the population, call it Indianapolis), the cancer rate was, say, 14.4%. Imagine that 144 out of every 1000 people in Indianapolis got cancer every year. Can you imagine that, or is it too difficult for you?

So we have a situation where, for those who live outside Indianapolis, 16 out of every 1000 people get cancer, and for those who live inside Indianapolis, 144 out of every 1000 people get cancer. Can you imagine that, or is it too difficult for you?

Now, let us imagine that we have someone who says that he’s ignorant about statistics and statistical anaIysis, but that cancer occurs all over the nation, it can be caused by many things, and there’s no proof that there is anything specially bad about Indianapolis.

Observe ropelight, folks. The Republican impeachment drive is germinating with the completely whacked-out right, where the whisper campaign is beginning.

In a year (or sooner), Dana and other very serious conservatives will be nodding their heads that something needs to be looked into here, FOX will be running every subpoena as top headlines, and all the very serious people who told Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid not to impeach blatant war criminals like GWB and Cheney for fear of “dividing the country” will be nowhere in sight.